Just a small update for February? It has been a good month, finances-wise. Income 2700 euros, expenses 1100 euros - this last one is only because nowadays, I'm only counting my health insurance premium in the month where I'm actually paying it, which is once per year in December; and the same goes for the gifts I give to my niblings, next one coming up in April with the birthday of the oldest one. So this year, income will fluctuate more. And so, February was a cheap month without birthdays, health insurance premiums or other irregular big expenses.

I put some money aside in savings, but most I put into the stock market, because wow, are those stocks for sale right now.

Net worth hovers around 85k. I put money in the stock market and in other assets, but then the value of my stocks drops and I'm back to 85k. Well, back in 2011-2012 I've seen how the value of your stocks can grow very quickly, so I'm hoping for another one of those growth spurts sometime in the future. In the meantime, I'm shoveling in as much money as I can.

I prepared my income tax statement. Our accountant will create the final tax paperwork, because of the fact that my boyfriend's company makes things a bit complicated now and then. I think that my boyfriend is going to get a lot of money back, because of his tax deductions for the house and for his retirement investments. I can't invest that much for my retirement, because of the Dutch tax laws and the fact that I'm already forced to save for retirement at my work place (which for most people is a good thing, otherwise they wouldn't save a cent). I will get a little bit of money back due to the charitable gifts that I did.

I've been battling depressive thoughts these last few months, probably mostly due to the fact that it's winter. I'm not really that good with cold, grey, windy days. Maybe when I'm retired, I'll stay in Spain or Portugal for two months every winter... But anyway, I am trying to come up with a list of things that make life awesome, and worthwhile. It is also partially a list of things I should start doing again. Such as singing in a choir, something that I loved doing when I was a teenager, but stopped doing when I went to university. I also want to learn to be able to cook some more meals. I would say I'm a reasonable cook, particularly of vegetarian food. But I think I could focus on making sauces and using herbs to spice up stuff (these days I often buy premixed dry sauce mixes or dry herb mixes; it should be possible to make these things "from scratch", right?). Baking is another thing I could do more often.

I didn't go to the gym at all this month. I was ill for two weeks (only skipped work for half a day and dragged myself to it for the rest of that period), and I don't think one should exercise when ill. Now I'm better, and I think I should go again sometime this week...

DutchGirl wrote:Just a small update for February? It has been a good month, finances-wise. Income 2700 euros, expenses 1100 euros - this last one is only because nowadays, I'm only counting my health insurance premium in the month where I'm actually paying it, which is once per year in December; and the same goes for the gifts I give to my niblings, next one coming up in April with the birthday of the oldest one. So this year, income will fluctuate more. And so, February was a cheap month without birthdays, health insurance premiums or other irregular big expenses.

I put some money aside in savings, but most I put into the stock market, because wow, are those stocks for sale right now.

Net worth hovers around 85k. I put money in the stock market and in other assets, but then the value of my stocks drops and I'm back to 85k. Well, back in 2011-2012 I've seen how the value of your stocks can grow very quickly, so I'm hoping for another one of those growth spurts sometime in the future. In the meantime, I'm shoveling in as much money as I can.

I prepared my income tax statement. Our accountant will create the final tax paperwork, because of the fact that my boyfriend's company makes things a bit complicated now and then. I think that my boyfriend is going to get a lot of money back, because of his tax deductions for the house and for his retirement investments. I can't invest that much for my retirement, because of the Dutch tax laws and the fact that I'm already forced to save for retirement at my work place (which for most people is a good thing, otherwise they wouldn't save a cent). I will get a little bit of money back due to the charitable gifts that I did.

I've been battling depressive thoughts these last few months, probably mostly due to the fact that it's winter. I'm not really that good with cold, grey, windy days. Maybe when I'm retired, I'll stay in Spain or Portugal for two months every winter... But anyway, I am trying to come up with a list of things that make life awesome, and worthwhile. It is also partially a list of things I should start doing again. Such as singing in a choir, something that I loved doing when I was a teenager, but stopped doing when I went to university. I also want to learn to be able to cook some more meals. I would say I'm a reasonable cook, particularly of vegetarian food. But I think I could focus on making sauces and using herbs to spice up stuff (these days I often buy premixed dry sauce mixes or dry herb mixes; it should be possible to make these things "from scratch", right?). Baking is another thing I could do more often.

I didn't go to the gym at all this month. I was ill for two weeks (only skipped work for half a day and dragged myself to it for the rest of that period), and I don't think one should exercise when ill. Now I'm better, and I think I should go again sometime this week...

Sorry to hear about the depressive thoughts. I have learnt that outsiders probably will never know what it feels like so I won't try to act like I do.

Looking at your financials you seem to do very well though. Perhaps hearing that from someone cheers you up..

This is, by the way, why I labeled it as "depressive thoughts" - I don't want to call it depression, because it isn't that bad. I have had mild depressions in the past, and these past few weeks were not like that. I also believe things are improving now, with my mood.

It certainly helps to have some money. I mean: it's one thing I do not have to worry about. Also having people around who appreciate me, helps. Colleagues and friends. Anyway, things are looking up again.

This year, we'll go travel quite a lot. Paris in April, and Iceland at the end of the summer. (Remember that I'm in Europe, so it's less expensive for me to visit these destinations than it is for an American). It's going to cost quite a bit of money after all, impacting my time-to-retirement slightly, but I'm very much looking forward to both trips, so I think it's worth it for me.

March was a good month. From February onwards I'm working less hours per week, and March was the first paycheck reflecting those hours. I was quite happy to see €100 more than I had tried to predict/calculate. Total income for the month was roughly €2900 (including income from my job-on-the-side), total expenses were €1800 (including €400 on the holiday we'll take at the end of this month).

I visited the doctor and had an iron deficit, so now I'm taking iron pills. It might be helping a bit with energy levels, although I'm sure the fact that the sun shines more and longer helps too.

At work, I tried to do a task that I was suddenly ordered to do by my supervisor, but I failed. It was really frustrating, because I myself was quite happy with how I had written this specific document, but my supervisor didn't like it. I told her then to please let someone else do it, and she was okay with that. So now I no longer have to do it. I probably made a bad impression here, but I think overall I still do (very) well. Performance review coming up at the beginning of May, though, I may hear more about this, then. But there are no real consequences: we don't do bonuses anyway. And maybe I'm less likely to be a candidate for promotion now, but then again, I don't want to be promoted to the next level which is more of that paperwork and less of the interaction with humans. I think I'll work there for five more years, and I'm happy with my current work tasks and paycheck.

My boyfriend's new company is doing fine, they now have the amount of projects that they can manage, they'll have to say no to further requests for a while. Excellent.

And finally, my dad had a health scare last week: sudden lower chest pain. As it happened, we were all at home for a party (and, fun fact, a GP and a cardiologist were present at the party, so the decision to get an ambulance for him was made with professional ease and confidence). It was great to be together during the scary first hours while he was in the emergency room. In the end, he was sent home without a diagnosis, after the pain had subsided. They ruled out acute heart problems. Now we are still waiting on some tests to look at possible gall bladder problems. He'll have an ultrasound on Tuesday for that. I am still a bit worried, and I'll be really happy if the cause of that pain turns out to be benign gall bladder problems. We'll have to see. At the age of 67, he's thinking about selling his farm, which would mean he would retire in a few months to years. I think he deserves a happy and healthy retirement, but of course, there's no guarantees in life.

Psychological ups and downs, high and low energy : this variation happens and is normal. With the coming of spring in Europe, the positive life force will flow if you give it a chance by getting outside, doing some exercise or planning a trip (as you already did - to Paris no less!). My second daughter and wife were just both tested and also found to be low in iron - this is such a common issue, and as you know can make you feel tired and drains the colour from life. You seem very much like a sensible person, and will take care of it. My wife self medicates for this condition with ice cream: it must be high in iron somehow, do you think? (actually, she is also a sensible person and also a doctor, so I trust her diagnostic ability!)

I hope your father makes a complete recovery and is able to use this close brush with fate, as a trigger for beginning his retirement and planning to use his remaining time for himself and not just to carry on carrying on. A wakeup call can happen at any age, as we people interested in FI know.

Good luck with the continuing journey, and I hope things develop well for you this year.

My father's doing fine, and I'm very glad to be able to say so. He still needs to visit the cardiologist for one extra test, to make absolutely sure he's fine. But all other tests have come back as negative, aka "good". So we're pretty confident that he'll be okay.

We've been to Paris this last week. (Frenchgirl, if you're reading this, sorry that there was no time to come find & visit you ). It was a great week, spent also with my boyfriend's family. We had lots of fun together, went to Euro Disney and to the Louvre, and then it was time to go home . Today was my first day at work again, and it felt like I had been gone for weeks, when it only has been one week of holiday. It was actually pretty hard to go back to work, I didn't want to. And then when I was actually working, it felt pretty good again to be active and to be helping other people by answering their questions, et cetera.

I made a decent salary in April, but I also had to cough up some taxes (due to not having paid enough taxes on the job-on-the-side in 2015 - well, free loan from the government, excellent, too bad you've got to pay it back at some point). All in all, I spent roughly 1850 euros on a salary of 2870 (partly from my job-on-the-side). So that's a pretty low savings rate for me, 36%. I hope to do better in May, as my job pays roughly an extra salary in May as "holiday pay". Still, I'll also have some extra expenses planned in May, so ...

I talked to my boss a few weeks ago, and we discussed the time that I gave up on a specific task. My boss said, that she liked how I told her that I couldn't do it. She said that she liked that better than having an employee who is burnt-out and on sick leave for an indefinite amount of time. Well, she's got a point there. So, good; no bridges burned, at least no important ones Pff.

Glad you had fun, with all those ERE ideas, there is a tendency to think too much about the future (when things will be "great" once you hit ERE), but you only have 'now", so enjoying the journey is the real goal, and I am glad your father is allowed to continue his route as well!!

I've made it to 90k euros! And with the current exchange rate, that's still just a little over $100k!! (Hurrah!). A really nice feeling, and onward to 100k euros it goes.

Income in May was quite a lot, due to the holiday money that is given out every year. Unfortunately, it's taxed at 50%-ish, I found out (some of that will return come tax time next year). So the 3200 promised pretax became 1600 posttax or so. But anyway. Total income of 4715 euros, expenses of 2414, and thus a savings rate of 49%. A large chunk of expenses was prepayments for our holiday in September (739 euros, and more expenses will follow), and the annual contribution to a charity close to my heart (500 euros).

The savings rate was better than in April. In May, I worked fewer hours due to some national holidays, which was really nice. I have to keep working on "what to do when I don't work anymore", though! I even got a bit bored here and there. I binge-watched some netflix series, but I don't think that's a worthwhile retirement activity.

My dad is doing fine. He had some cardiology tests and they turned out okay-ish. No reason to suspect coronary disease. His heart is a little bit enlarged, but currently there's no function loss. He has been asked to return in two years time (or five?, can't remember) for a checkup. He's already on blood pressuring lowering medication, which can help with keeping the cardiac hypertrophy under control. So I'm not extremely worried about that. And compared to the first diagnosis of "he has a heart attack" and then the next diagnosis of "he might have had a heart attack in the past", I'm pretty pleased with the final verdict.

Today we're at my parents' to celebrate my mother's birthday. I promise that we'll do a good job on that. It was sunny here, yesterday, and the late May countryside where they live is glorious. We're still in bed now (while downstairs the grandkids are laughing and shrieking - not our problem, ha), and you can hear the birds outside, I think at least five different species are singing. It's nice.

My mood is doing better. I was a bit depressed the other day, and then I remembered that I was PMS-ing. Oh, yeah, right. Hormones, baby, totally rad. So in general, with the occasional down day, it's better. I've started to listen to some meditation recordings. I really like the ones where you have to visualize yourself on a beautiful island or in another serene location. I'm wondering whether that kind of escapism is good for me (I have always liked to flee to fantasy worlds and it doesn't necessarily make your real world better), but on the other hand, I feel quite peaceful and refreshed after the 10-15 minutes of meditating, so I think that that's good. Plus I now have a wonderful fantasy garden which I may try to recreate at some point with any real garden I might get...

My boyfriend's business is doing fine. They've already made enough income to cover their planned salaries (plus taxes) for 2016, so anything extra is gravy. They're both still on a project, my boyfriend for the next two months, his companion for the next four. So it's extremely likely that more money will come in over the next months at least. After that, they'll have to start finding new projects, which isn't their favorite activity, but has to be done anyway, and will probably turn out fine.

Haha, meditation is good, something I have heard all around the world. Even very religious people that pray a lot, told me that it was the meditation-part that they liked about it. Everyone should find their own way for moments of reflection (or sometimes just nothingness -- clear the mind). I am too rational for meditation practices (and also not religious), but I can find peace in some actions and be one with the moment (and forget everything else). Other than that, good to hear that your father and mother doing fine, and they seem to live on a nice location, more important than anything else (I can know, my parents died young), so enjoy those peaceful moments and do not worry about ERE time spending, that will unfold when the time is there!!

An update for two months in one go? Income was reasonably high. There was a one-time work bonus this month, and I worked a lot of time on my side projects (too much, perhaps?), so for the two months together, income was at 6700 euros. Expenses were pretty high, too, due to the fact that we paid for our holiday (starting 4 weeks from now!). Total expenses were 5470 euros (of which 2300 went to the holiday, so other expenses were 3100ish for the two months).

My parents also gave each of their children a monetary gift this month, 2000 euros. I'm a bit shy about that, as it isn't income that I've earned myself, but on the other hand I'll gladly accept it to increase my net worth (or you could also say, help me pay for my holiday expenses).

So, also thanks to the recovery of the markets, total net worth is now 94,000 euros, which is nice to see. I might be able to get to 100k euros before the end of the year.

I worked a lot of hours in June and July. Already in June, this was discussed with my boss, who then could adapt my schedule for August (the July schedule had already been made at that point). So now I'm looking forward to a reduced workload for the next four weeks, which is nice.

I bought some stuff too, these last months. For example a Fitbit flex, because I wanted to quantify how much I'm moving about. I think it's a reasonable amount (if I walk to the supermarket in the morning, and then work an 8-hour-shift, I get my 10,000 steps in a day easily). Side effect is that I'm also seeing how little I sleep. You tap the fitbit when you intend to go to sleep, and you tap it again when you've woken up - there's hardly ever 8 hours between those two moments for me - and then the fitbit also shows how much time I needed to actually fall asleep. So, a "wake-up call", so to speak...
Now I've also ordered a small voicerecorder for two reasons: a. I want to see whether I can use it to record my food intake quickly during the day (and then in the evening, put it in a calorie-calculating program), and b. To do interviews with family members about our family's history. This is a fun project that I'm doing with a cousin of mine. I could use my phone for that, but unfortunately my phone crashes when I use the recording app.

So I'm quite the consumer these last couple of months . Hopefully that'll become less again, soon.

Final bit of news is that my brother and his wife will have a third child, in early 2017. I've already started saving for its annual gift from me. I hope they stop after three, otherwise this gift giving (for their education later on) can become really expensive.

We're back from our holiday. It was a nice holiday in Iceland, but quite the expensive one, too. For example, a normal bread in a supermarket would cost something like $6, where in the Netherlands, today, I bought a similar bread in a similar supermarket for $1.20. One big take-away pizza was $30 - we started splitting one pizza instead of each buying a smaller one (which would cost 2 x $25 or so). My boyfriend's not as opposed to spending money as I am, so sometimes I just had to bite my tongue, too. Compromise.

Expenses aside - we had already paid for the majority of the holiday, I'll just have to transfer $600 more to our shared account to cover my half of the extra expenses but that's it - it was a very nice holiday. We traveled a lot during those 2.5 weeks, and we saw a lot of different landscapes, and a lot of nature. I felt much calmer after a while, and I saw the same effect in my boyfriend, who is normally more restless. When I'm working, I seem to have some stress-related symptoms, like tension headaches and other muscle aches. They disappeared. Also, I have slept decent nights for 2.5 weeks straight, in all kinds of different beds. Normally, I tend to have periods where I'll wake up at 3 AM and can't sleep anymore. Never happened these 2.5 weeks.

This (again? Same as after the last holiday?) makes me long for retirement - imagine experiencing this forever instead of just for 2 to 3 weeks. I also made some resolutions to try and make my life at work a bit better, too. I believe I do that after every holiday, too, but still... Let me try to be lessed stressed out by work. Let me try to keep current on household tasks. Let me try to keep meals in the freezer so that I can grab something good and healthy when I have an evening shift and need to pop something in the microwave at some point. Let me try to spend less, so that I can retire (much) sooner.

I also keep thinking about reducing my working hours. My official work hours are 28 per week. In reality, I work some overtime, so on average it's 30 per week. However, then there's travel to and from work (often 30 minutes to an hour one-way, depending on the location), breaks ... So I think I'm really spending more like 40-45 hours per week on work-related stuff. If I were to reduce my official work hours to 24 per week, that would go down to maybe 35-40 hours per week? However, in this last year or so I've also spent a lot of time on my job-on-the-side, which is bringing in much less per hour than my real job. So perhaps, if I feel stressed out, I should let the job-on-the-side go and just focus on the real job. Spend 40ish hours per week on that, and use the other hours in a smarter way.

Income in August was 3000, expenses were 1200 (nice and low - September will be higher due to the holiday expenses). The markets did their thing; so my current net worth is 96k euros. I may very well go over the 100k by the end of the year, which is a pretty cool idea to me.

I saw that I have been writing here for five years now (first post Sept 17, 2011...). A lot of things changed in those five years, but progress is (or seems?) slow. So be it. I know other people make more money, I know other people spend less, too. But this is my path (and I like where it's headed).

And who knows, the company (investment) of your bf will pay off as well in coming years, could be a nice surprise!
Good to see you enjoy the journey as well, which is ofcoz most important, we only have "now", even though FI requires to have a plan for the future, but it is every moment that counts. Not easy in this rational world (at least western world), happiness is always there inside of us, but it is so damn hard to recognize it every day, while some say that simple meditation will bring it, every day, which is stronger than waiting for FI to happen.
Sorry for my ramblings I am sure you know better than me !

I see nothing wrong with your approach, slowly rolling that ball of savings down the hill, picking up size and speed. You have done the major thing, which is that your thinking is the right way round on ERE, and you are not a thoughtless spender.

I so agree that balancing an intentional life with the day to day flow of mood and energy, is a difficult act.

When it works you feel the flow, and life is excellent. At other times.....not so much!

Iceland is somewhere I have always wanted to visit. I envy you a lot, despite the expensive pizza!

Always nice to get a paycheck when you've only been working one week out of the month, by the way .

The savings rate for this year is 38% so far. I'm hoping to get it back up to something over 40% by the end of the year, due to the fact that I'll get more income (13th month) and plan to not spend much. We'll see.

I am close to having 100k euros in my savings and investments now, that is a very nice development. I reached 98,500, but then I had to pay some bills again. Next paycheck may push me over the 100k for the first time - and then it may very well go down again because of bills. Or maybe the stock market, who knows (I don't care too much - I'll keep buying).

Today I have the day off. It's nice to sit here in the morning with nowhere you need to be. I will go out, but when I've had my coffee - in a leisurely style. It feels like Saturday morning, more or less.

Now it is here! I have 100.250 euros now. Maybe a bit more, if I were to update with the latest numbers for my investments (I saw the markets went up last week). But I always update those numbers on the first of the month and not before. And it doesn't matter much.

I will drop below 100k again in the next month (unless the markets do really well), because of my regular bills. But maybe from the next monthly paycheck onwards, it'll always be over 100k (provided the market doesn't drop 50%, in which case it will go below it for a while, again). Onwards to 200k!

Congrats on a milestone reached. Steady progress with some interesting outings and experiments. How is the Fitbit Flex working? Is it helping you keep track of sleep? Has using it become a habit or fallen by the wayside? Did you sleep more when in Iceland. Sleep definitely helps me stay on top of stress.

First 100k took me almost 38 years (ha), or, more precisely, it took me roughly ten years to go from -5000 euros to +100,000 euros. I hope to reach 200k four years from now, due to a combination of more experience with saving and personal finance, higher salary, and compound interest. So yes, hopefully it will be easier.

saving-10-years ... I left the fitbit flex at home for the holiday to Iceland. I put it back on when I came home, but my boyfriend said that sometimes it bothers him at night when I put my arm around him. So now I took it off. I am considering selling it to recoup some of the money. I think it can be a good device to monitor yourself; and I also think mostly I have gotten the answers I wanted - yes, I move around a lot when I work. And yes, I need to go to bed earlier, or learn to sleep in.

Thanks for that candid review. I should perhaps save my money and just keep a note of when I go to sleep and when I wake up. I have a basic step counter which is really useful for highlighting those days when I am too inactive. My DH goes to sleep earlier than I do and I intend to follow him shortly but sometimes it is several hours delayed. Because he wakes early I also wake early. More sleep would also mean less time online which would also be a good thing methinks.

More than 10k per year saved is very good and you are more confident about your plans in the past few years so should get better. Terrific work.